What do you really know about people?

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Sometimes you just don’t know what to write. I mean, the pandemic was all-consuming enough, but now a long-overdue reckoning for racial inequality is happening around the world and J.K Rowling decided to interrupt the publicity tour for her cute children’s short story say some very cruel and bigoted things about trans women.

Then there’s me: Hi! I sewed a face mask and it made me think about structuring novels!

Yet, at the same time, I am seriously not educated enough to talk authoritatively about any of the above. I mean well and I try to be relatively informed, but I’m not in the trenches and I don’t want to deliver over-simplified arguments that end up doing more harm than good.

So. Some links from people who DO know what they’re talk about and then I’ll move diagonally.

I don’t want to talk about J.K Rowling. There are plenty of trans men and women who deserve to have their disillusionment/engagement with her front and center right now. However, I thought I knew her in a way–her values if not her personality–even though I’d never met her, and she’s not the only artist or author I feel that way about.

Social media gives us unprecedented access into each other’s lives. In some ways that’s great. I’ve made real, lifelong friends through the internet, people who are as close as family. Yet, at the same time, for most people we only see their curated persona online. People only see MY curated persona online. I don’t even want to fool anyone, but you put your best foot forward. You post pictures of you doing cool stuff, not sitting up at night eating a cold sausage in your jammies. You tell people the best things about yourself, not the grosser elements.

That’s probably not going to change. That’s how we manage to live with each other.

So instead we need to look closer at social media when we’re engaging with people online. Not if it’s just casual discussion, unless you want to, but if you’re ‘stanning’ a celebrity then do due diligence. If they like a random bunch of weird tweets, then that is probably careless thumb skills. If they like a lot of exclusively TERF material, then that is probably symptomatic of something more.

Look not just at what they say, but what they don’t. If someone never mentions a particular cause that you believe in, then there could easily be a  reason for that. Ask. I mean, don’t pry into their personal life or violate their privacy, but a question about things like racism or homophobia or hatred of any sort is fairly acceptable to me. If they don’t want to answer that’s another data point to think about. That doesn’t mean that anyone has to be cancelled out of hand–maybe they missed the question, maybe they meant to answer but couldn’t get it right–but don’t just dismiss it. Think about it. Remember it next time something happens.

You don’t have to do a deep delve into every author/actor/performers life before you enjoy their product, but look carefully before you align yourself morally with them. We assume that people we like share our values. If someone believes 90% of what I do, surely that means they probably agree on the last 10%? And that makes it hard when they reveal that they are hateful or misinformed in some way.

And if you’ve really invested in a personality at that point? It’s too easy to try and make excuses for them. They just aren’t informed or they don’t mean to be unkind, that what they said isn’t REALLY what they mean, they’re just working from outdated scholarship…. It makes you feel better, but if it is something serious then it can hurt other people. What they hear is that what you get from this personality is more important than their pain.

For the record, I’m not perfect and I know that. I try to be kind, and sometimes I fail. I believe that people deserve to be treated with dignity, and I try to stand by that. There have been times I know I should have spoken up, but didn’t because I was scared or not confident I’d be able to make the point. For the record, I think Black Lives Matter. I also think that trans women are women and trans men are men. If there’s anything else you want to know, you know where to find me online. I’ll try and be honest.

 

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